


Lost in Translation

by ushauz



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Autism, Bipolar Disorder, Gen, Past Merrill/Mahariel/Tamlen, Pre-fenders if you squint and are hopeful, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22425028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz
Summary: Just because Southern Andrastian culture had next to no knowledge of mental illness and neurodivergence didn't mean the same was true for everywhere else in Thedas.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 124





	1. Zazikel

Fenris always felt like he was trying to catch up with everyone else. They had their memories, but more than that, they had been allowed to develop skills beyond whatever subset a master required and nothing more. Reading, geography, mathematics, philosophy. Almost all of these were denied, as the more slaves were kept in the dark, the easier they were to control, though Fenris was sure there were some parents that would try to teach what little they could. Hawke could talk about being a ‘simple farm kid’, but there was still at least some education there. More than a slave got.

Fenris was an atypical example, he knew. He did know some politics, philosophy, language (though not reading). Those, and the only reason he knew how to fight, would be dared allowed to have a weapon, was because he had been trained to be a bodyguard. That had not been his choice, or so he assumed. Bodyguards were picked from the most loyal and having some physical health. It meant Fenris hadn’t learned other skills - how to clean, how to cook.

Or perhaps he did, but those were lost in the lyrium ritual.

It was something he didn’t tell the others, of course. He was sure they’d find no end of humor in the ex-slave that didn’t know how to clean. Better to pretend that he liked the mansion that way and save face. Hadriana had tormented him enough over the subject as was, and he had no desire to rekindle those memories.

Fenris was fortunate (and he hated that he found himself _fortunate_ ) that Danarius found a partially-learned bodyguard more useful than not, that he was occasionally granted snippets of knowledge deemed useful for Danarius. Everything else was what he could glean, the knowledge he could rip from the world. Even then though, his knowledge was limited. Hawke could recite tales of history both Ferelden and not; Varric had a variety of knowledges on the political and economic as well as the mechanical; Merrill had the luxury of growing up with her only task to read and remember; and then there was Anders who had access to what was, from Fenris’ limited information, supposed to be banned knowledge in the South: knowledge of biology and medicine, and that was beyond Anders’ Circle-given education.

Anders had grown up with more books than he could read, and Fenris was just now being taught the basics by Hawke. It was humiliating, but Fenris refused to let his own pride to get in the way of finally having the ability to wrest knowledge and meaning from those Maker-accursed books.

And when he was done, he was going to read every last book in Hawke’s library.

The point was, Fenris was normally covering for being the least informed of the group. So it was always an alien experience when Fenris realized he knew something the others didn’t, and not just about something that was reasonable, like knowledge of Tevinter’s workings or a basic knowledge of Qunlat.

No.

Basic things, that even an ex-slave might know.

“I just don’t get Anders,” Hawke said. This was unsurprising. Hawke didn’t get a lot of things. “One month he’s depressed, and it’s the end of the world, and then he has a week where this is it, if he just writes for a week straight without stopping for food or hydration he will find the words that will save all the mages in the Circle.”

“Do you think it’s an abomination thing?” Isabela asked, toying with her cards. She did that sometimes. It could be a tell, or it could be a fake tell Isabela was doing in order to make Fenris think it was a tell. “That’s my best guess.”

Fenris almost interjected, but he didn’t know what the word for what Anders was in the King’s Tongue. And surely with his advanced knowledge of medicine, Anders had to know what was going on with himself and had just, for some reason, declined to mention it to anyone.

“All I know is it makes me physically tired just watching him,” Varric said.

—

A week later, and Anders was volunteering for the entire night shift on Sundermount.

“You can’t stay up the entire night. That’s irresponsible,” Aveline said.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s irresponsible. It’s what I’m going to end up doing,” Anders said, and there was defeat in his voice.

“Just go to sleep,” Hawke said. “Please, for the love of the Maker.”

“I don’t know why I can’t sleep, okay?” Anders asked. “Sorry I can’t go to sleep on command like the rest of you people.”

And that was curious. Anders _should_ know exactly why. Fenris frowned and examined him. He didn’t look just tired but exhausted, and frustrated as well.

Aveline gave him a look. “If Justice is-”

“It’s not a Justice thing!” Anders snapped before sighing. “Look I’m just going to pace around outside the camp. You won’t need a watch. I’ll take all the shifts.”

Fenris considered the fact that Anders might not, in fact, know what was going on with him.

—

Eventually, Fenris decided to try to bring it up the topic, just in case.

Talking with Anders was… difficult. He was aggravating on a good day, and it didn’t help that he took offense with ease. He wasn’t sure if he’d always been like that, or if Anders’ demon simply caused him to be more irritable than someone of Anders’ condition normally was.

Ideally, Fenris would wait until Anders’ boundless energy had worn out, as he would be less irritable then, but there was no knowing how long these moods could and would last.

But.

They were on guard, as Hawke did something doubtlessly illegal to some noble family. Anders kept drumming his fingers against the wood of the doorframe. He looked exhausted.

It was as good of a moment as any, Fenris figured. He thought for a moment, tried to figure out the right words in this tongue that would help Anders understand.

“You realize your mental state is no different than any other kind of deformity, right?” Fenris asked.

“Oh I’m _deformed_ now, am I?” Anders asked.

The ensuing argument was broken up when Hawke and Isabela ran out of the building, chased by those they’d been stealing from.

—

That was not the end of that. Of course not. No argument they ever had died simply due to time-constraints.

“Yeah so tell me more how I’m _deformed,”_ Anders said.

And Fenris knew that’s not what he meant, deep down, and this would finally be an opportunity to explain but. The way he said it- the things he’d heard in Tevinter prizing perfection over everything else. “So you sneer on those you deem less than yourself? Your own patients, perhaps? Are they to be mocked and ridiculed as well?”

“Right. Of course that’s your logic,” Anders said. “The lyrium’s starting to affect your brain, elf.”

Fenris hissed, and Anders just laughed at him. “Wow it’s almost like having someone say you are mentally deformed isn’t a great experience! So glad I could teach you this lesson most kids learn. But oh wait. That’s right. You don’t have those formative learning memories, do you?”

“Nope,” Hawke said. “Ending this one right now.”

—

“Okay it was wrong of me to say the lyrium was seeping into your brain. I’m sure you were perfectly this horrid before lyrium poisoning,” Anders said.

Fenris glared at him. “Surely your personality has improved since you let a demon possess you.”

“Hey,” Anders said, eyes flashing with hurt. “Justice has had nothing to do with this conversational train. Leave him out of this.”

“You are right; I apologize,” Fenris said. “Your demon is the nicer between the two of you. That was a step too far.”

Anders sniffed. “Thank you.”

“I do not understand you two,” Hawke said.

—

Sometimes Fenris interacted with Anders beyond Hawke dragging them into the netherworld or between Fenris using Anders’ clinic because Anders was many things, but Fenris trusted him with healing at least. And part of him, deep down in denial knew why he goaded. Testing, constantly testing to try to prove what kind of man Anders was. Why Fenris even cared what kind of man a bedraggled possessed apostate was.

So far, what kind of man Anders was was ‘a dick’.

And yet Fenris let Anders over into his mansion anyway, to win favors from him at cards because Anders was in a perpetual state of not having coin.

Sitting in silence was almost companionable to the point where it unnerved Fenris. Anders was, after all, a powerful mage, and literally possessed by a demon. It simply should not be as easy to just accept that.

Glancing over at him though showed the heavy bags under his eyes, the dull hair, the reddened eyes. Anders was tired enough at this point that his face wasn’t normally giving the plethora of tells that it normally did, which was making the rounds harder to win.

After a few more minutes, Fenris still didn’t want to bring it up again, but then decided it had nothing to do with any concern about Anders’ health. He just wanted to win at cards more easily was all.

Fenris sighed and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Anders said, “Nope.”

“I-”

“Isn’t nice how we aren’t fighting right now at this second? Do you really want that to change?” Anders asked, fumbling with his cards a bit. “Because when we aren’t fighting, it is nice.”

“You are equally to blame,” Fenris said, willing to admit some amount of fault.

“I just want to play cards. And end up owing you- I don’t get your sick satisfaction out of getting me to do house chores, but if that’s what helps you work through your issues, then I’ll suffer for the card game. Anyway, is it really worth getting into a fight again?”

“It is about your health,” Fenris said.

Anders frowned.

“Your… ‘mental deformity’. I do not know how else to phrase it in this tongue,” Fenris said quickly as irritation flashed across Anders’ face. “The phrase isn’t as demeaning in Tevene.”

“There’s gotta be a better way than that,” Anders said, “and still not sure what you are talking about.”

Fenris huffed, looking at his hand for a moment. And then discarded his cards. It didn’t matter. That hadn’t been a winning hand anyway. He thought how to explain it, perhaps to a child.

“You are a healer. You are aware that some people are born… with problems. They have twisted limbs, or bad lungs, or any number of other physical maladies.” Such slaves normally ended up dead.

Anders frowned. “Yes,” he said slowly.

“People can be born with problems in the head,” Fenris said. “In a variety of ways. Some are like Sandal. And some are like you.”

“We aren’t talking about this,” Anders said, face growing stony.

“How am I offending you? Really?” Fenris said. “Why will you not listen?”

Light crackled under Anders’ skin, and it was a terrible sign that Fenris’ first thought was ‘perhaps the demon would be more willing to listen to reason’. As was, Anders was merely silent for a minute, head slightly tilted to one side as he had whatever passed for a conversation with his demon.

“Okay, compromise,” Anders said, which implied it _was_ Justice who talked him into being reasonable, and that truly, Justice was the more reasonable between the two of them. “I’ll let you talk, and then you have to let me talk. It’s going to be about the Circle, your most favoritest subject in all the world, so if that will get your knickers in a twist, you might as well drop the subject now.”

Fenris had no desire to hear Anders talk on and on about the Circle, but he was too stubborn by far to back down now. “Agreed,” he said instead, calling Anders on his bluff.

Anders blinked. “Fine. Very well. Talk.”

“Despite what Varric seems to think, it is not always caused by trauma, but it can be exacerbated by it,” Fenris said slowly. “I- it is a frustration having words that I cannot translate.”

He tried again. “Tevinter pretends it is above the worship of the Old Gods, but the worship lingers, and the influence doubly so. The polite way to say someone is mentally deformed is to say that in the old days, they would have made a fine candidate for the priesthood.”

“The priesthood?” Anders asked.

“Zazikel. God of madness. He’d be fitting for you,” Fenris said dryly.

“Haha,” Anders said dryly.

Fenris did not say that Zazikel was also the god of chaos. And freedom. All of which suited Anders on some level, and of course it’d be just like Anders who could make too much of freedom into a bad thing, into chaos for others. A very small snide part of Fenris said that that was exactly what was said about freeing slaves, that it’d be bloodshed and chaos for everyone. He ignored that part for now.

“There isn’t the same stigma because of that,” Fenris said. “Some lingers, but not nearly as much as down here. Mental deformities are simply a thing that happens, and the clever find routes around their condition. I think there are medicines one can take for various conditions, but the treatment of such wasn’t something slaves got to know.”

“I already know I’m wrong in the head,” Anders said. “That’s not news.”

“Yes, but yours is a specific condition. Mania et melancholia,” Fenris said, and Anders blinked. “It is characterized by an instability in the moods. You swing from too much energy to not enough. Irritability and paranoia and anger and elation, all at once, to sloth and depression. Other people have that exact trait. It’s not considered anymore shameful than- well, among the minor nobility it isn’t considered shameful. Among the alti, any imperfection in the mind is looked down upon. Except for, of course, those descended from the Zazikel priests.”

Anders didn’t say anything, just looked at Fenris with a mixture of wariness and confusion, so Fenris pressed onward. “You continuously make plans as if your current state will last. It never will. You will always be caught between extremes, but you are educated. You could probably find Tevinter texts that detail herbal treatments that could make the extremes more manageable. It… might help you sleep, if other sleeping aids aren’t working.”

Anders shuffled the cards he was holding in his hand back and forth.

“You don’t… talk about these things in the Circle,” Anders eventually said.

“Because it’s Tevinter?” Fenris asked.

“Because it means you are emotionally susceptible to demons,” Anders said. “So they kill you, or make you Tranquil.”

Fenris declined to point out that Anders did, in fact, bond with a demon. He did have some restraint. And he could also have sympathy.

“You think they wouldn’t care if you got depressed,” Anders said, “since it usually means you find a way to immolate yourself in a corner. But they do. They don’t mind if you are depressed, see, as long as you take care of it for good. A mage alive who might stay depressed? Despair demon bait. Can’t have that. Too angry, and that could attract Rage. Any kind of instability is just an excuse for them. So. You don’t talk about it, because then you might be able to cover it up.”

“You are awful at covering it up,” Fenris said.

Anders laughed, haggardly. “Well. I was better at faking and lying before Justice. Got worse at deception after that, see. But no uh. It didn’t start really happening until my late teens, and by then, I’d already started a strong apprenticeship into spirit healing. That’s the one thing that saved me, honestly.”

“Being human helped, probably,” Fenris said, because Merrill wasn’t around to hear his brief solidarity with other elves.

“You know what, I’ll grant you that. If I was an elf, spirit healing alone wouldn’t have saved my hide,” Anders said. And then he said, “so there’s texts on this? Really some magical herb that can make my mind calm down for two whole seconds?”

“Yes,” Fenris said. “Though I don’t know what that medicine is.”

“Huh,” Anders said. “Good to know. I mean, seems fake that there’s some magic fix out there this entire damn time that could have saved me years upon years of endless suffering, but I’ll try near anything at this point short of blood magic.”

Then they picked up the cards again and kept playing. Fenris got a better hand, and the deception went unnoticed.

Fenris tried not to bask in the knowledge that Anders had _listened._ Fenris had gotten to be an authority on something for once, and was listened to. Treated as an equal. And perhaps Anders’ extremes could be lessened. That would be an improvement for everyone, Fenris reasoned.

Maybe Anders wouldn’t look so tired all the time. That in itself was not without merit. And it was nice to actually get along with Anders for once. To put aside petty bickering and talk to each other. Perhaps get to know one other a little bit better.

And so of course, fifteen minutes later they got into a loud argument over stew.


	2. Harelgar

Merrill was taught to be wary of all spirits, as all Dalish were. None of them could be helpful. They were all said to be the same, but ‘demon’ was used as a descriptor for those that wanted to make deals or tried to barter aid of some sort. She was taught to not trust any of them, that they were all dangerous, and they would all lead to your end.

But fire was dangerous. Fire could burn down an aravel, or a whole forest. And yet fire was a wonderful tool when properly used. Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper, was the goddess of healing and fire alike. Medicines could come from poison. You simply had to be smart and careful and know what you were doing.

So she took precautions (more than Anders had) when dealing with her demon, politely didn’t point out to Justice that by Dalish perceptions, he was a demon, and tried to stay canny. To keep on her toes, metaphorically. Not literally, as that would be tiring and hurt her feet. To remember that Justice was a danger, like a fire, that all spirits were, even if it wasn’t really their fault they were all dangerous. It helped that Anders was harsh on her, viewed her stupid, and Justice seemed to share Anders’ Andrastian beliefs, nevermind that there were plenty of spirits that upheld Dalish beliefs.

Dalish Fear spirits took the form of a raven, after all. A monster raven, with eyes blazing out of oily blackness, and a sense of rapid flickering movement even when holding still.

And well, Merrill was a bit scatterbrained already, and struggled to understand the vastly different culture and different way of using language as a given. She didn’t catch so many things and then would feel stupid, and sometimes the others treated her as if she was a simple child, which didn’t help. Except Isabela, who was sweet on her, and if only Merrill could be sweet back, but she just knew she wasn’t interesting enough.

There goes boring Merrill who only cares about magic and history and nothing else. But Mahariel and Tamlen had understood, and had always tantalized the idea of stumbling upon some ancient elvhen secret, perhaps old ruins to explore.

And now they were both dead.

So here she was now, alone with her mirror, wanting to make it work for her people, to help recover at least one of the vast number of things that had been lost, and trying to hope it would make the loss hurt less, though it’d been years now. She missed Tamlen, but she missed Mahariel more. Mahariel had been like her, and the feeling of that special kinship had been good.

There were dots though, connections anyone who wasn’t so scatterbrained could easily have made, she felt like. And still, it took her a while. Took her a few years and one particularly nasty fight.

There had been a great number of Tal-Vashoth on the coast again, and Hawke had deemed on helping the Arishok before the Arishok burned down Kirkwall to the ground. It had been hot, and humid, and there were bugs buzzing around, and sand scrunched in her toes, and now sticky, tacky blood on her arms.

It didn’t bother Merrill the way many such things didn’t bother her, usually at least, until it was like suddenly everything was wrong all at once. Mahariel was often bothered by things though, and she remembered that all of a sudden looking at Justice. At some point Justice had come out during the fight and hadn’t quite retreated. He kept twitching and looked, well, like he was still wanting to fight something.

Hot, humid, bugs, sand, and he had more blood on him than she did. He was flinching anytime someone said something in too sharp a tone, and his face looked stonier and stonier. And all at once, her brain made the connection.

Oh. Of  _ course. _ Mythal’s twice over twin moons, she could miss the obvious sometimes.

Dangerous, her mind reminded her, especially now. All the same, she sidled up next to him. She supposed she didn’t have to. Justice was an awfully rude spirit, but she missed Mahariel so much, and Mahariel would have been cross if she didn’t help.

Mahariel, too, got upset over wrongs both great and small.

She ignored that, because if she thought about that she was going to get teary-eyed, and then people would ask, and she’d have to lie for some reason, and Mahariel hated lies.

“Justice,” she said, keeping her tone soft. “Do you want to go back and just let Anders out?”

He gave her a withering look that informed without words that she understood nothing of how their situation worked.

“Well okay then,” she said. “I think there’s a springs nearby, just out of the cave and up the hill. It’s fairly quiet there. You could try heating it up with magic and taking a hot bath?”

“…no?” Justice said. Someone said something again, shrilly, and he flinched as if having been struck. “You are too close. Leave.”

Well, she tried. And she did give him space, because that was polite and kind, even if he usually wasn’t.

Shortly after, Justice exited the cave, heading down the hill, not up.

—

For two weeks, she thought nothing of it and ended up forgetting about it entirely. She had work to do, after all. She was still infusing the eluvian glass with exact quantities of lyrium to get the levels to what the shard had before merging the mirror whole. It was slow work, as the lyrium wanted to clump instead of spread out like water, and she’d find spots without any lyrium at all after she thought she’d gotten it all smoothed out.

And then one day, there was a knock at the door. She put down her tools, slowly stretched out her joints as goodness she had been sitting there just like that for a few hours now hadn’t she? And went to open the door, fully expecting one of her neighbors to talk strangely at her for half an hour before leaving, suddenly.

It was Anders- except no, she’d actually spent enough time with Anders these past few years to know he didn’t hold himself stiffly and formally like a soldier out to march. He could give one of the qunari a run for his money. Though did qunari have money? She never thought to ask. From what she heard of their system, it didn’t sound like it had much use for money did it?

Still, always better to be polite. “Anders… or Justice?” she asked, blinking once.

He hesitated, which was answer enough. Despite his rudeness, she did have a small flash of sympathy, for the others were cruel to Justice as well. It was just like shemlen to not value politeness.

“Well come on in,” she said, gesturing him inside (and ignoring every last Dalish tale about inviting spirits where they shouldn’t be). She hesitated as she entered the main room proper. “Oh. Right. Can’t offer you anyplace to sit, and that’s customary, right? My chairs all went missing. Can’t understand why the chairs and not the paintings or anything else. I checked thrice over, and the only thing taken was the chairs.”

Anders would make some comment about theft, as his things went missing all the time in Darktown. Justice simply closed the door and stood awkwardly. Though Anders was still in there, somewhere. Perhaps it was better to say he was simply more Justice right now than more Anders, Justice having been brought out by something. It was fascinating, how they worked, and she wanted to know more, even if she never wanted to get possessed herself, because there was value in knowledge.

And because, well, who wouldn’t be curious?

“Did you need anything?” she asked. “Hawke calling us all out for theft again? Theft is always so exciting when it doesn’t happen to me.”

“There was a recent outbreak in Darktown,” Justice said. “We’ve spent the last few days caring for the worst of it. It was… chaotic.”

He said the word the same way someone might pronounce ‘painful’. All those sounds and smells and sensations.

Half of which she’d miss, she just knew it, and she liked to press herself against trees to remember where her body was out in the forests. No one in the clan had minded. She tried doing that with a wall here and got strange, bad looks, so she stopped doing it where people could see.

A hug would work as well, but people were stranger here about touch than they were about walls. Hawke was the only one to hug her.

“That sounds awful,” Merrill said.

“I had no idea what to do, so I tried the heated bath after when things were quiet,” he said, and Merrill blinked. Right yes, she had recommended that. “It… worked. The chaos lessened. I do not understand. Anders has no idea why either. But you suggested it. You know something.”

“Well I presumed something,” Merrill said. “Maybe shemlen don’t have a similar concept? I don’t know if there’s a word for it in Trade tongue, but in elvhen it’s called ‘harelgar’.”

“Harelgar,” he repeated and better than Anders, almost like he was trying to mimic exactly how she said it, with her voice instead of his.

“’Harel’ means fake, or deceit, and ‘elgar’ means spirit. So, a fake spirit,” she explained. “Maybe there aren’t harelgar shemlen, but there are harelgar elves. They act a bit like spirits. The world can be overwhelming or not enough whelming. They like rules and things to be exact, and get confused about culture and custom, can talk strangely, and get obsessive about things.”

Mahariel had known so many animal facts. She’d trade, animal fact for history fact. Tamlen didn’t have special facts, but he was a better listener than either of them.

“How can you tell the difference?” Justice asked.

“Well we have binding traps spirits can’t get out of,” Merrill said. “So if a person can walk right out, then they were a fake spirit. According to the stories, Fen’Harel created them to keep the People on their toes. You were getting overwhelmed, and I thought to myself, you know if some things work for a fake spirit, maybe they’d work for a real spirit.”

“Ah,” Justice said. “You were taught these tricks?”

“Well not by the Keeper,” Merrill said. “By Mahariel. She was harelgar, and- well I am too, but I don’t get overwhelmed the same way she did. Sometimes if the world got to be too much, she needed to walk away into someplace where the world was quiet and still, and then she’d ‘reset the senses’ by taking a hot bath or eating something spicy or cold. It’d help, even if she still was a bit antsy for the rest of the day.”

Justice looked stony as ever, and Merrill knew it was irrational but still felt a bit jilted.

“I know, it’s all Dalish things, but we get some things right you know.”

“I am aware,” he said, and she felt soothed. “You do not understand. The past few years have been… wonderful and terrible in equal measure. And I am just now finding out that I could have saved myself and Anders countless pain by sometimes walking off and eating ice. Ice Anders could summon. There was a solution this entire time, and we had no idea.”

“Well, that’s how a number of Anders’ patients must feel,” Merrill said. “Knowing if they only boiled this plant just so, they could have had easement from a lot of aches and pains.”

“True. It is a good lesson,” Justice said, and if that wasn’t the biggest difference between Justice and Anders, then Merrill would frolick next to a sylvan. “I- thank you. Your world is beautiful, but it can be too much sometimes.”

Marethari would have chewed her out for approaching Justice alone. But see? Good things could come from being polite to spirits sometimes. And maybe she didn’t have a fellow harelgar around anymore, but. If she was safe about it, there was no sense in not relating to a real spirit, was there? “You are welcome.”


End file.
